tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1993511132029677275.post6497995670494632964..comments2023-10-08T08:06:45.668-07:00Comments on Blog from the Booth: SkyfallBookshelf Blogshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17472809150690582438noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1993511132029677275.post-30201909868137471142013-02-09T07:01:50.525-08:002013-02-09T07:01:50.525-08:00On a related topic: I am nearing the end of Blood...On a related topic: I am nearing the end of Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy (there's been enough hyperbole surrounding this book so I won't comment on it except to say that the reviews I've read have neglected to make the connection between our 20th century decadence and the marauding horde of scalphunters, something McCarthy most certainly does). In it, through the character of the judges - defacto leader and moral guide to the marauding horde of scalphunters - states (and I'm paraphrasing here as I don't have my copy handy) that the stakes are the game. It makes me wonder if perhaps the apparent flowering of Hollywood cinema in the, so-called, post 9/11 period has more to do with the stakes than with any one specific event. One recalls that the last time Hollywood managed to shake loose its apathy and start making some pretty darn in good films, was in the seventies when the cold war, the energy crisis and the shadow of nuclear armageddon seem to have convinced certain creative types that the end game was upon them so they better make it good (it's no surprise the pinnacle of this cycle was called Apocalypse Now). John Jantunenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04229821440635252394noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1993511132029677275.post-14283068762349413812013-02-09T05:52:03.394-08:002013-02-09T05:52:03.394-08:00I wonder, though, if one should be so eager to cel...I wonder, though, if one should be so eager to celebrate a state of cinema where all things become one (which was, I think, the point of the preceding quote by Michael Chabon who, to be fair, did write one good script: Wonder Boys). I fear that it will lead to a similar situation that we are facing in publishing, whereby works of cream puffery like, to take but an example, The Life Of Pi are mistaken for serious literature (or to take a more tragic example, an English teacher I met at exhibition park can assert that Stephanie Meyer is a great writer). It seems to me that elevating a film such as Skyfall above what it is is (a cash sucking machine) steers us ever more perilously towards a world in which the mildly amusing is our new standard of greatness. John Jantunenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04229821440635252394noreply@blogger.com